Your Embrace
by earthtosarah
Summary: Bethany doesn't need to wait in fear to be taken back to Heaven anymore...


The dream started like this:

I'm running along the shore. The waves are reaching for me and my feet splash the ocean water up around me. The water retreats back to the sea leaving wet sand behind. I feel so alive, so human. But, of course, I'm not. I can feel my thin, seemingly fragile wings folded gently between my shoulder blades. Instead of leaving footprints, there's nothing. There's only wet, warm, flat sand left behind me. I don't notice this though, I'm too excited. I'm not sure how I know, but if I keep running, I know I'll find Xavier sitting in the sand waiting for me with that crooked smile.

I'm so caught up in the moment. The salty air, which used to overwhelm my fragile senses, now feels as familiar as Xavier's t-shirt as the light breeze wraps around me. The sound of the ocean is no longer a roar, but a lullaby. As the water splashes around me, I start to feel a familiar presence. I open my eyes and saw Xavier sitting not too far down the shore. It would take me about twenty-seconds for me to reach him, to jump into his arms and stay there forever. I picked up speed and noticed something beneath me: footprints. I tried to stretch out my wings to find they were gone. I was exactly how I wanted to be forever, human.

All of the sudden, Xavier looked up from where he was and smiled that crooked smile I'd been waiting what seemed like centuries to see. He waved, but his hand froze in mid-air and his face possessed a look of terror. He was shouting something that I couldn't hear over the waves. Suddenly everything seemed to get louder and the beach stretched out ahead of me as if the universe was trying to keep us apart. Xavier was still shouting whatever he'd been shouting and I tried to focus on his lips to see what it was.

_Run._

I was confused and slowed my speed. He got more animated, waving his arms all direction screaming for me to leave him and get away from here. The look on his face said that he knew I wasn't going to leave without him, but that he needed me to trust him. The sky had turned a dark shade of gray. Thunder roared through the air as lightning lit up the world, sending chills throughout my whole body. I knew I had to do Xavier had said even though I didn't want to leave him. I ran away from the water. The farther I got from the waves, the less I noticed my newly gained footprints. Slowly they disappeared, leaving behind the flat sand once again. If my footprints were gone, I knew my wings were back too. I took an enormous leap through the air.

As my wings sliced through my thin t-shirt, I gracefully glided up into the air. My wings looked and felt as fragile as paper, but they were stronger than granite. Mid-air, I spun around to face what was threatening me, only when I did, there was nothing but light. It was pure and warm. It embraced every part of me, wrapping around me in beams of gold and white. It should've been blinding, but instead of feeling a sharp sting in my eyes, it was like I didn't have any. I didn't have any of my senses. I didn't even seem to have a body. I was just a soul, surrounded by light.

When I realized this, I realized something else, something that would've made my stomach drop into my shoes if I had a stomach, or shoes, for that matter. I was home. Not the place I preferred to call home, but _home. _I was back in Heaven. Which meant only one thing to me and nothing more: I am never going to see Xavier again. I could feel every part of me dying. I wasn't really dying, angels can't anyway, but every piece of my spirit was falling apart, dropping al the way back down to earth, where it would shatter into pieces like little raindrops.

I wondered if Xavier would stand in that rain and know that I was gone. The worst we had feared had happened. They had brought me home, without warning or time, they just took me. They took me from Xavier. They _stole_ me from him. They meant no-harm, but to say they harmed me would be an understatement. An explosion erupted from deep inside me and every emotion I'd every felt with Xavier filled the air around me. How I'd been so curious that first time I'd seem him, fishing on the edge of the dock, offering to show me hoe to do it. I remembered how I longed for the boy I'd barely known. I remembered how I fell in love with him, despite what my siblings told me, how I'd loved him more with each second, how broken I'd felt when I thought I'd lost him forever. How I'd felt at that second was unexplainable, because this time, he was gone from me for real. Just as the pain was too much to bear, like a million daggers stabbing into me...

I bolted up, drenched in sweat and tears. I felt two strong arms holding me, heard a voice comforting me, soothing me, saving me. _Wake up, _the voice said, _it's okay, it was just a dream. I'm here, don't worry, I'm here. Don't cry. _

Once again, all those feelings came back to me in an instant, but this time, it's like every drop was being forced back into me. I sobbed, and ran my fingers through that hair, ruffled from sleep. I took in everything at that moment: the crooked pillows, the faint glow of the moon through the door to the balcony, the distant echo of the ocean waves crashing to shore in the distance, the arms around me, the boyish smell mixed with the faint smell of wood, the arms around me, the voice...

That voice. _I'm here, _It had said.

He was really here, holding me, comforting me from a bad dream. This was real.


End file.
